


Make a meaning of the poison in this place

by justhockey



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Anxiety Attacks, Comforting Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Communication, Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Secrets, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Protective Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Upset Evan "Buck" Buckley, s04e04 speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:14:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29299470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justhockey/pseuds/justhockey
Summary: Eddie presses another kiss to his cheek, then wipes the tears from his eyes.It’s so sweet that Buck almost can’t stand it - doesn’t think he deserves such gentle hands when he’s so,sobroken.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 471





	Make a meaning of the poison in this place

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Orpheus_ by Sara Bareilles.

Buck doesn’t feel like he belongs in his body. His skin feels too big, or maybe too small. Just - not right. Like he wants to crawl out of it, shed it like it’s something he can leave behind. 

He steps inside his apartment and it’s the exact same as it was when he left, but he’s looking at it though a different pair of eyes now. It feels like every single thing in the room has been moved slightly to the left, like it’s all off kilter - the world is spinning off its axis. Buck doesn’t know if he can keep holding on. 

He grabs a beer first, because he figures that if he can’t think then he can’t feel, and if he can’t feel, then he can’t hurt. But honestly, the alcohol just makes him feel more nauseous. And it does nothing for the way his heart aches, the way it feels likes it’s pumping blood into his chest and Buck is going to drown in the pain of it. 

“ _Fuck,_ ” Buck breathes, and he doesn’t need anyone to tell him how utterly wrecked he sounds. 

He tries to sleep next, because it can’t hurt as much if he isn’t awake to feel it. But he lies in his bed and tosses and turns. His mind is too loud, there’s too much chaos twisting around inside of it and he can’t turn the volume down for even a second. So he knows it’s useless, knows that sleep won’t come easy - or at all - tonight. 

Buck has felt a lot of things this evening - confusion, and anger, and pain, and betrayal. But he doesn’t feel shame until he opens up his phone and re-downloads tinder. 

His hands shake as he swipes, and he keeps swiping, and they’re all beautiful - people of all races, and genders, and styles. Every single one of them available, a warm body for Buck to hold onto, to keep him grounded even if it’s just for one night, or even a couple hours. 

But the sickness he feels in the pit of his stomach has nothing to do with the beer, and everything to do with the inexplicable _guilt_ he feels. Because this isn’t him anymore, he left this part of himself behind when Abby walked into his life, and he doesn’t want to pick it back up again. 

Especially not like this, not as a way to mask the pain. He’s done that before, and all it did was make him miserable, make him hate himself. And he refuses to give his - well. He refuses to give Margaret and Phillip that kind of power over him ever again. 

So he deletes the app and locks his phone - ignores all the texts and missed calls that are blowing it up because he just _can’t_ right now. 

He can still hear their voices, the words echoing in his head like an alarm - loud and screeching and inescapable. And the _way_ they said it too, so fucking cold and callous, like it didn’t even matter. It was like they didn’t even care that with one sentence, they tore Buck’s whole world down. 

_”You’re adopted.”_

And Maddie - Jesus. The way she’d cried and reached out for him, apologies spilling from her lips as if that could ever make up for the years of lies and deceit. 

Maddie’s betrayal hurt even worse than his parents. Because they’d always been distant and indifferent about Buck, but not Maddie. She had been his everything, raised him when his parents couldn’t be bothered, tried to protect him when she could - when she was still around. She’d been his lifeline, the thing that had kept him tethered to reality when all he wanted was to float away into the clouds. 

She’d even held him as he cried, when he was barely thirteen and didn’t understand why his parents seemed incapable of loving him. And she’d known. She’d known the whole time. 

Buck can’t breathe. Pins and needles are shooting up and down his arms, and his chest feels restricted, like there’s a rubber band wrapped around it, and it’s only getting tighter. The edges of his vision feel fuzzy, like tv static, and he rubs at his eyes to try and make it disappear. 

A sob tears it’s way out of Buck’s chest, loud and echoing in the silence of his lonely apartment. It’s the first time he’s cried since he found out. 

And suddenly, it’s like he can’t stop. He feels like a kid all over again, too bright and too different for their small town. Or too loud and too difficult for the people who were supposed to be raising him. Because Buck has always been too much of everything; he’s like the sun - pretty to look at, but he burns everything that gets too close. 

He feels empty, when he finally stops crying. It’s like there’s nothing left of him to give now. All the anger and the hurt has evaporated, and he’s left with a bone deep numbness that spreads through his whole body like a wildfire. 

He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to move past this. It feels like he’s never going to be okay again, like the world is never going to look the same as it did a few hours ago. He feels so, utterly helpless. 

A knock at the door makes him flinch. He scrunches his eyes closed and hopes that if he stays quiet enough, Maddie will leave him alone. Because he knows it’s her, the sixteen missed calls and twelve unopened text messages are a dead giveaway. 

And he just - he can’t even look at her right now. She’s the one person who was never supposed to lie to him, and she’s been keeping the biggest part of his life hidden from him, all for the sake of their embarrassing excuse for parents. He needs time and space to think, to figure out how he’s going to even begin to deal with this. Because he doesn’t want to say something to her that he’ll regret, but he thinks if he has to see her face then he will, and he doesn’t want to do something he can’t take back. 

But the knocking continues, just getting louder and louder until it’s more of a thump, like she’s banging her whole fist against the door. And Buck has got neighbours, he’s not risking getting a noise complaint because of her too. So he drags himself off the couch and ambles over to the door, his whole body dripping with an exhaustion that still won’t let him sleep. 

Buck is already telling her to leave before the door is fully open. 

“Maddie, I told you I can’t -“ but then he pauses when he sees who’s standing in front of him. “Eddie?”

“You took your time.”

And suddenly everything he’s just been through, all the thoughts racing through his head, they don’t matter anymore. Because Eddie is standing on his doorstep at five to midnight with worry lines crinkling between his brows and a sad curve to his lips. 

“What’s wrong?” Buck asks, opening the door wide. 

“Maddie called me,” Eddie says as he steps inside. 

The panic in his chest eases a little when he realises that neither Christopher or Eddie are in trouble, but it’s quickly replaced with a fresh round of anger. Because Maddie had no right to involve Eddie in this - who has a son, and problems, and a life that doesn’t revolve around Buck. And it’s not her thing to tell - _clearly,_ because she’d kept it from his entire life. 

“What did she tell you?” Buck asks. 

His whole body is tense when he asks, like he’s bracing for impact. Waiting for another hit to knock him down while he’s already on his knees and begging for mercy. 

“She said something happened with your parents, and that you might need someone right now,” he says with a shrug. 

Like it’s no big deal that he dropped whatever he was doing to drive to Buck’s in the middle of the night. Like it’s perfectly okay that she had the audacity to ask that of him, as if Eddie is his fucking keeper - as if Buck will fall apart without someone keeping an eye on him, ready to do damage control when he inevitably snaps. 

“Sorry, she shouldn’t have called,” Buck says.

He shifts back towards the door to see Eddie out, because Buck is a big boy and he can handle this by himself, and because Eddie shouldn’t have to been dragged into this shit show. 

“Buck, talk to me,” Eddie says.

He doesn’t make any moves to leave, and he’s looking at Buck with wide, honest eyes. Buck almost caves right there and then, because he’s hurting so bad he wants to scream, and Eddie is the one person who makes everything in his life feel a little easier. He doesn’t though. He doesn’t want to be exhausting. 

“It’s fine, everything isn’t always about me,” Buck says, chuckling bitterly. 

Eddie’s face twists painfully for a second, but he still doesn’t try to leave. Instead, he steps even closer to Buck and looks him directly in the eyes. 

“It is when something’s wrong.”

“Eddie-“

“-Buck, I’m _always_ here for you, okay?” Eddie tells him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “We’re family.”

He flinches away from that word like it’s something that stings. _Family._ As if that means anything at all to Buck now. He doesn’t have a family - doesn’t have parents, though he never really had them, and he doesn’t have a sister either. He’s on his own. 

But then Eddie’s thumb brushes over the bare skin of Buck’s throat and something inside of him settles, just a little. Because Eddie is solid ground, Eddie is safe. 

Buck takes a breath that rattles through his entire body, and he brings his hands up to cover his face like it will somehow hide all the ways in which he’s hurting - shield Eddie from the mess of it all. But Eddie has always been reckless and unafraid, so he takes holds of Buck’s wrists to pull his hands away from his face, then he smiles softly and guides Buck over to the couch. 

Buck let himself be steered through the apartment, until he’s sitting on the couch. And then Eddie sits next to him, one leg tucked beneath him so he can turn to face Buck while he listens. He keeps one hand circled around Buck’s forearm, like he knows that Buck needs something to keep him present. 

“What happened?” Eddie asks. 

And Buck doesn’t even know where to begin, but he figures the beginning is a pretty good place to start. 

“My parents were always distant. Less so with Maddie, but still - they were never around much, and it kind of felt like they were our roommates instead of our parents. No matter what I did, I was never good enough for them.”

His voice cracks and Eddie holds his arm tighter, a silent show of support. 

“I used to try _so_ hard, and they just didn’t care. And I always thought it was something I did, you know? Like I was too much hard work, or too overbearing, or something,” Buck explains. 

“You’re not,” Eddie says, quiet but certain, like there’s no doubt in his mind. “You’re not too much, Evan.” Buck just shrugs. 

“Anyway, they’re in town, y’know, because of the baby,” Buck continues, and he tries not to sound jealous but it’s hard. “They didn’t come after the bomb, or the embolism, or the tsunami. But they came for this, even though she isn’t due for months.”

He knows it’s pathetic, to be jealous of his unborn niece. And he’s not, not really. Because he loves her so much already, and if Phillip and Margaret are better with her than they were with him and Maddie - well. He can’t begrudge her that. It still hurts though, that all the times he almost died weren’t enough of a reason to come and see him. 

“I don’t even remember how it came up, I don’t know what we were talking about it just - it happened, and they said it, and I couldn’t _breathe,_ ” Buck gasps, like it’s happening all over again and his airways are closing up. 

Eddie shifts closer so his knee is pressing into Buck’s thigh, and he rests his free hand on Buck’s shoulder. Squeezes tightly like he’s trying to keep Buck here, stop him from going back to that moment. 

“What did they say?”

“That - that I’m _adopted,_ ” Buck somehow manages to say, to choke out past the grief that’s lodged in his throat. 

“Fuck,” Eddie whispers. 

And Buck can’t help but laugh. Because yeah, _fuck_ about sums it all up. 

He tilts his head to rest it on the back of the couch, and he squeezes his eyes closed to try and stop any more tears from falling. It doesn’t work though, and he can feel as they escape his closed lids and trace a pathway down his face and neck. But then Eddie’s hand is on his face, brushing them off his cheeks so gently it makes Buck cry more. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Buck whispers. 

He sits up, wipes at his own face because he already feels pathetic enough as it is. He’s crying like a little baby and he has no idea why - it’s not like those people even raised him, they were parents in title alone. But fuck, _Maddie._

“She knew,” Buck says. “Maddie. She knew all along and she didn’t tell me.”

He finally turns to look at Eddie, to gauge his reaction. His eyes are swimming with unshed tears, but it isn’t pity in his face like Buck had been expecting. No, it’s _pain._ Like Buck’s hurt is Eddie’s too, like he’s feeling this alongside Buck. 

“I don’t even know what to say,” Eddie admits. Buck appreciates his honesty. 

“Yeah, well, it’s a fucking mess.”

“I just - whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s okay,” Eddie says. 

“I don’t know _what_ I’m feeling,” Buck confesses. 

Eddie moves closer again, lets his hand rest on the back of Buck’s neck and his thumb sweep over his skin. It feels like the most comfort Buck has had in a long time, and he almost wants to cry again. 

“That’s okay, too. This is fucking huge, and it’s complex, and it makes sense that you don’t know how to feel about it.”

Eddie has a way of talking, a way of wording things that makes it feel like everything is going to be okay. Buck figures it’s probably the dad in him. 

“I’m so angry at her.” It’s a relief to say it out loud, to acknowledge the pressure building inside of him that he still manages to feel guilty about. 

“Maddie?” Eddie asks, and Buck nods. “That makes sense. You trusted her more than anyone, and she’s been lying to you your whole life. It’s okay that you’re angry at her Buck.”

It doesn’t feel true though. Because Maddie practically raised him, she was there for every event that his parents didn’t make it to, and she missed out on so many things because she was taking care of Buck. And she’s been through so much, with Doug, and their parents too, and it just. It doesn’t feel like he’s allowed to be angry at her. 

“I know you think you should just be grateful for whatever you can get from people, but that isn’t true, Buck. You deserve to be treated _right,_ and by lying to you she hasn’t done that. You’re allowed to be mad,” Eddie says. 

Buck almost laughs, because it feels like Eddie just read his mind. But he said everything that Buck needed to hear, and some of the tension in his shoulders eases a little bit, like maybe he doesn’t have to feel guilty for being mad at her. 

He just feels embarrassed, instead. Because even with everything he’s feeling, all the ways it feels like he’s breaking, he still just wants to be good enough. 

“I want so bad to hate them, but I _can’t._ I still just want them to love me,” Buck says. His voice cracks and he can’t help but laugh at how pathetic he sounds. “How pitiful is that?”

“Oh Buck,” Eddie sighs. 

He closes his eyes in humiliation, can’t bear to see the look in Eddie’s eyes. But then Eddie is leaning forward and pressing his forehead against Buck’s temple, his lips ghosting over Buck’s cheek in the softest of kisses. 

“That’s not pitiful mi amor, it’s _incredible,_ ” he says. “You have the most amazing heart. It’s so big, and so wonderful that you love even when people don’t deserve it. You’re so _good,_ Evan.”

Whatever Buck wanted to say dies in his throat. The hand that was resting on his neck comes down to hold Buck’s hand instead, and their fingers tangle together in a way that makes Buck feel like something more is slotting into place. Eddie presses another kiss to his cheek, then wipes the tears from his eyes. 

It’s so sweet that Buck almost can’t stand it - doesn’t think he deserves such gentle hands when he’s so, _so_ broken. 

He looks at Eddie again, holds eye contact for a while like maybe if he stares long enough, he’ll find all the answers he needs in Eddie’s eyes. It’s the easiest he’s been able to breathe since he found out, just sitting here with Eddie and having his feelings validated. He didn’t know he needed it until it was happening, and he thinks, not for the first time, how lucky he is to have Eddie in his life - Eddie who knows exactly what he needs and gives it to Buck without any reservations. 

And god, Buck is in love with him. So in love that it feels like it’s swallowing him whole sometimes. It’s kind of funny, that for the first time in months his love for Eddie isn’t the biggest thing in the room. Except for how it’s actually really sad, and he’d take unrequited love over _this,_ any day of the week. 

“My parents aren’t really my parents, and my sister isn’t my sister, and the life I thought I knew doesn’t even exist. The one thing - the _only_ thing - that hasn’t changed, is you. You’re the only real thing in my life,” Buck whispers. 

The confession is heavy, because he knows exactly what it sounds like. Eddie isn’t stupid, the weight of Buck’s words, the meaning behind them, it won’t be lost on him. Buck hadn’t meant to say it like that, hadn’t meant to make it so obvious. But he feels so wrung out that he didn’t know how to hold his tongue, and he doesn’t have it in him to be afraid right now. He’s felt so many emotions so quickly, and it just doesn’t feel possible to be scared with Eddie holding his hand. 

“I’m not going anywhere, Evan,” Eddie tells him. “I’m never going anywhere.” 

Buck looks down at their joined hands and lets his thumb brush across Eddie’s skin. “Really?” He asks. 

Eddie’s free hand - the one that isn’t tangled with Buck’s - comes up to Buck’s face. He takes hold of Buck’s chin and turns his face so he has no choice but to look at Eddie. And he’s smiling - open and warm, in a way that no one has ever looked at Buck before. 

Then Eddie leans forward and catches Buck’s lips in the most lovely kiss he’s ever tasted. It’s short, and tender, and it steals Buck’s breath. 

“Really,” Eddie whispers against his lips. “I’m here, and I’m staying. Whatever you need. I’ve got you, baby.”

And it’s weird, that Buck’s heart feels like it’s breaking and healing at the exact same time. He feels like he’s been cracked open and laid bare for the world to see, but like Eddie’s gentle hands are putting him back together, piece by piece. He feels like he’s drowning and floating, falling and flying, living and dying. 

Eddie’s arms around him bring him back to earth. 

Everything Buck knows has changed today. He’s looking at the world in a different light, and he feels scared, and he feels lost. 

But he doesn’t have to navigate this alone now, Eddie will hold his hand every step of the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Very late to the game speculation for the Buckley family secret


End file.
